Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1972. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2005. / Prepared for: Dept. of Teaching and Learning . Bibliography: leaves 109-126. Also available online.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2005. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 62-72, 102-104)

Curriculum is a means by which the medium of thought finds expression. It is a palette for the mind. Curriculum is a device by which thoughts are given form that can be shared. In the hands of a curriculum artist, symphonies of thought are conceived, composed, and performed. Like a palette in the hands of a master, curriculum in the hands of a teacher can transform minds. This dissertation seeks to examine, through reflective inquiry, the efficacy of an integrative, concept‐driven curriculum framework for novice elementary teachers, and, thereby, posit a generalized model of reflective curriculum inquiry to generate a deeper understanding for the researcher and her readers. The emergent model is not a curriculum, but when viewed as a framework, this model can become a means to facilitate design and to further support the development and evaluation of curricula. This dissertation is a story of how a teacher was made, not born. It is a story of how students learned conceptually and performed purposefully. It is also a story of roles and relationships found between students, teachers, parents, administrators, and curriculum. Throughout this dissertation, actor‐network theory (ANT) was used to help describe these relationships between the various roles that I assumed in relation to others, resources, and educational settings. Finally, this dissertation reveals a significant and direct relationship between standards‐derived concept vocabulary, subject matter integration, and literacy development that emphasized the need for a configurable curriculum framework to serve as a model for curriculum inquiry. / text

Special education teachers are under tremendous pressure to deliver a personalized educational experience to special needs children while, at the same time, operating within an equal opportunity, politically driven educational system. Urban teachers are under even more constraints since urban public schools do not typically have the resources, materials, and support from parents needed to deliver the best possible educational experience to students. In 2000, Coleman suggested that caseloads followed closely by paperwork are the biggest concerns of special education teachers. This author further suggests that, on average, special education teachers prepare fifty lessons per day for special needs children, and spend one to two days per week managing paperwork. Budgetary constraints in urban schools further place obstacles in front of special education teachers who must make do with materials and training that are incomplete or out of date. Professional challenges may be the reason behind a lack of special education teachers in urban areas, and the fact that the demand for special education teachers was outpacing the number of special education teachers entering the field. The purpose of this study is to explore five research questions that examine the antecedents to an urban elementary special education teacher's intentions to leave the special education profession. Five professional challenges were developed from extant literature to test their influence on job satisfaction and three constructs from the theory of planned behavior. Job satisfaction and these three constructs were tested for their predictive validity influencing a subject's behavior intention to leave the profession. Using a non-random, purposeful sample of 79 certified special education teachers in urban Texan school districts, a quantitative method using multiple regression was used to test nine correlations. Results suggest that professional challenges significantly influence job satisfaction and perceived behavioral control from the theory of planned behavior. Behavior intention to leave the profession was significantly influenced by job satisfaction, attitudes about leaving the profession, and perceived behavioral control. Attitudes about leaving the profession were significantly influenced by job satisfaction. The subjective norms construct was not a significant predictor of behavior intention, and neither attitude nor subjective norms was influenced by professional challenges.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (July 17, 2006) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

There has been much concern about how teachers teach math in the elementary classroom. With increasing accountability standards from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB; United States Department of Education 2002), students in the elementary grades are tested for mathematical ability. Elementary teachers have felt pressured to teach certain subjects in the classroom as a result of statewide and nationally mandated student testing. This research should add to the data available to those higher institutions that are seeking ways to design programs to help improve the teaching of mathematics and the understanding mathematics students possess. Faculty members in the elementary education program at Mississippi State University were interested in determining ways to assist students in becoming better teachers. The Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (2001) has made many statements about the need for teachers to have deep understanding of school mathematics concepts and procedures. This study was designed as a first step in determining if the mathematics courses and materials are helping pre-service teachers comply with NCTM, Principles and Standards for Schools Mathematics (2000), and the No Child Left Behind Act (2001). Also it was designed to determine the needs of students and to help university faculty find ways to help math educators make sense of mathematics. The overall goal of the study was to assist elementary education faculty in establishing a descriptive profile in mathematics for pre-service elementary education teacher majors. Descriptive statistics were generated for the variables in this study. Data analysis of the descriptive profile revealed that most teacher made tests such as grades in university required mathematics courses; scores on grades in Structure of the Real Number System, Problem Solving, and Informal Geometry and Measurement, 45 GPA core courses; Student Teaching; and Overall GPA categories were consistent across cohorts of students. A recommendation was made to survey the original sample two to three years later with survey questions and open-ended questions to see if what they learn as preservice elementary majors helped them to teach mathematics as novice teachers.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Jacqueline D. Spears / There is a growing concern that the number of students graduating with a STEM major in the U.S. is insufficient to fill the growing demand in STEM careers.  In order to fulfill that demand, it is important to increase student retention in STEM majors and also to attract more students to pursue careers in those areas.  Previous research has indicated that children start losing interest in science at the elementary level because science is taught with a focus on learning vocabulary and ideas rather than learning through inquiry-based techniques.  A factor that affects the quality of science education at the elementary level is the preparation of elementary teachers. Many elementary teachers feel unprepared to teach science because they lack adequate content knowledge as well as the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the subject.  Previous studies of teacher preparation in science identified some areas with which pre-service teachers need assistance.  One of these areas is understanding children’s ideas of science. To address that issue, this dissertation investigates whether the use of an instructional approach that teaches physics phenomena along with an understanding of how children think about the physical phenomena promotes changes in students’ knowledge of children’s ideas and use of those ideas in instructional and assessment strategies.  Results indicated that students who were explicitly exposed to knowledge of children’s ideas more often incorporated those ideas into their own microteaching and demonstrated higher levels of sophistication of knowledge of children’s ideas, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies that incorporated those ideas.  This research explores an instructional model for blending physics content and pedagogical content knowledge.

The problem of this study was to determine the effect of the use of Flanders' system of interaction analysis on the verbal behavior of an elementary school faculty and on their attitudes toward in-service education.